I got talked into going to an accupuncturist, for reasons I may someday explain.

It was a clean place, with bird sounds playing in the background, but the first thing I noticed was that it smelled damn peculiar. Not like incense, but something else. It was strong, piercing, and acrid.

I took off my shoes and placed them with the others in the lobby, and met the Doctor in the office.

The Doctor was friendly, she introduced herself, asked me about why I was there, and proceeded to go through a checklist with me, about sleep, eating habits, headaches, stress and the like.

Then she asked me to stick out my tongue, so she could examine it.

She told me that my tongue was "greasy" and swollen, from too much heat in the body.

I'm trying to keep an open mind, because there are actual studies that say accupunture helps with pain relief in some cases, but this isn't filling me with confidence.

She then takes my pulse. Well, actually "3" pulses for each hand. Most of them are good, but my lower body one is a little low.

Now I'm not excited about having accupuncture in that particular area, so I'm getting anxious.

She tells me that I have too much yang energy, which is hot, and making digestive flem which spreads to the rest of the body. So I'm internally overheated and in need of balancing. Which could be fine depending on the solution to this.

After some minutes of explaination and waiting, she says she is going to perscribe some herbal tea. Which is sounding pretty wonderful, and quite a relief.

Until I realize, upon recieving the tea, where the source of the smell came from. I nearly vomited it up on trying to take it.